25 February 1988: Presenters: Mark Goodier & Peter Powell (Goodybags Debut Special!!)
Bloody hell - Goodier's shoulder pads rival Ev's General Bombthebastards. Had anyone told him 16:9 widescreen was still a few years off yet?
(29) PRIMITIVES – Crash
Cor, what a tune! Their first release under RCA, having signed over their Lazy Recordings label as part of their contract.. There was a big push to make this a hit by RCA, including a number of limited-edition releases of the single - a 7" EP in a custom sleeve that contained 6 tracks, 4 of which were the standard single mix, a 10" gatefold autographed version, a 12" with a free poster and a 7" special edition of 2000 that came with a 'Crash' chocolate bar
(6) MORRISSEY – Suedehead (video)
Audio flub near the end of the video - someone moved the wrong fader or forgot to press the monitor button and we got the delayed studio ambient playback feed mixed in (around the time of the least convincing tractor driving ever captured on film)
(14) VANESSA PARADIS – Joe Le Taxi
Hmm, the particularly French kink for 'Lolita Pop' leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth for me. She was 15 at this point - ok, it's no Mini Pops, but it still seems a bit iffy.
(17) THE SISTERS OF MERCY – Dominion
I'll cover the song in the next episode, but the video needs a mention. Shot over 8 days in Jordan around the ancient city of Petra (as seen in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade) at a cost of £50,000 and directed by David Hogan. Spiggy Eldritch is quoted as describing it as 'Lawrence Of Arabia Part Two', but it's really got more of an espionage theme. The overblown pomposity perfectly matches the song.
King Hussein put a Jotdanian Air Force helicopter at the disposal of the production and many of the Bedouin horsemen extras were veterans of both Lawrence Of Arabia and Last Crusade. The camels were particularly camera-shy, so their owner suggested to Hogan that he disguise the camera in a Bedouin shawl and kufeya, which put them at ease. Patricia regards the filming of the video as her favourite memory of her time in the band (she loved getting to ride the black stallion, and Spiggy was terrified of the horses and camels).
The full video was never shown on TOTP ,
so here it is.
(19) EDDIE COCHRAN – C’mon Everybody
Another
Levi's ad tie-in, which was based on the memoirs of Eddie's girlfriend, the songwriter Sharon Sheeley, of the first time he noticed her because she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt rather than her usual fancy dresses. EMI had released a '25th Anniversary' compilation album of Cochran's tunes in 1985, and off the back of this advert they re-released it as the 'Levi's 88' edition:
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(25) GEORGE HARRISON – When We Was Fab
We open on the line 'Back when income tax was all we had' - still smarting were we, George? It's a decent enough song, but like all late-period Harrison recordings it suffers from 'Jeff Lynne syndrome', i.e. sounds just like ELO.
(20) BANGLES – Hazy Shade Of Winter (video / credits)
The band were asked to record a song for the soundtrack of the Andrew McCarthy/Robert Downey Jr. film Less Than Zero. They decided to record a cover of Hazy Shade Of Winter, which had been a long time part of their live set. Unlike on the Different Light album where they were mostly replaced with session musicians, this single was produced by Rick Rubin and he allowed the band to play on it. It's also unusual in that each member gets to sing (there had been much friction in the band during the Different Light era due to their label focussing in Hoffs as a lead singer).
